Touch Sensitive Records

The Host 'Esalen Lectures'

Touch Sensitive Records

The Host 'Esalen Lectures'

"Inspired by think tanks and floatation tanks, psychological research, 2012 mythology, 1960's social planning, stoned apes, elite transhumanism, and the counter-culture, the Esalen Lectures is an imaginary trip to a NorCal psychedelic retreat.

Use the sounds to enter into a program of theory and practice, to accompany inward voyages, and for sunset induction rituals. And when the coloured dust settles, and the weird dreams have eased off, maybe your neural re- programming has just started?

Drawing from a wide source of tranced-out musical legacies, the Esalen Lectures is pitched somewhere between Ash Ra Tempel and Steve Hillage at their most freeform, and more underground New Age artists like JD Emmanuel and Ariel Kalma.

Using sweeping synthesizer patterns and subtle field recordings to create dramatic arcs across the record, spiralling guitar squalls meet blissed-out, motionless womb lullabies and digitally-enhanced nocturnes to tell a weird story of induction, hypnosis and psychic disturbance”

‘Magic Coins’ is an unexpected rhythm track that is seemingly drum and bass-inspired, written collectively by all three band members. Bromide are Simon Berridge on vocals and guitar, Ed Lush on drums, and Hugo Wilkinson on bass.

These songbirds worship at the altars of Husker Du, Teenage Fanclub, The Replacements, Guided By Voices, Dinosaur Jr., The Only Ones, Buffalo Tom and other melodic rockers equally obsessed by songs, songwriting and the euphoria associated with playing music through amplified electronic equipment.

Hailing from London, their sound has been described as "Grant Hart fronting Sebadoh" and "Elvis Costello fronting Dinosaur Jr."

Vive Le Rock noted that they mix “the best bits of The Lemonheads and Dinosaur Jr. replete with melancholic melodies and J Mascis-ish guitar lines".

"Bromide haven't just woken up, they're alert and more keenly ambitious than ever" **** Record Collector

"Stunning.. if no one discovers this album now it will be claimed as one of the great lost albums of the era" 8/10 Louder than War

"I Woke Up catches the London-based three-piece punching a rather large and splendid hole in the modern alt-rock landscape" 8/10 God Is In The TV

"If you like Dinosaur Jr and The Replacements, you’ll love this" 4/5 musicOMH

"A mighty fine tune from Bromide" Gideon Coe, BBC 6 Music

"Joyously scrappy punkgaze tune" The 405

Track List Side A – Magic Coins Side B – Always Now Live: Saturday 23rd March - Scratchstock at The Birds Nest, Deptford Saturday 13th April - Records Store Day alldayer at Sister Midnight Records, Deptford Thursday 18th April - The Islington (London) as support for UT Saurday 25th May - Scratchstock at The Birds Nest, Deptford

London-based psychedelic stalwarts Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation are proud to reveal their third album 'Sacred Dreams' for Rocket Recordings. Continuing to dive into the deeper waters of experimentation, ‘Sacred Dreams’ is both a musically hefty amalgamation of reverb drenched space-rock and retro centric electronics, as well as an emotionally cathartic release for the band, marking a new direction and fresh approach.

Since their critically acclaimed album 'Mirage' was released, Josefin and writing partner Fredrik have relocated from Stockholm to London and have created a new Liberation around them - this new band consists of the powerful and intuitive assemblage of musicians; Maki (Go Team), Patrick C Smith (Eskimo Chain), Matt Loft (Lola Colt) and Ben Ellis, who’s worked with both Iggy Pop and Swervedriver.

‘Sacred Dreams’ was largely recorded at Press Play Studios (King Krule, Fat White Family, Yves Tumor, Stereolab, High Llamas and many others) run by Andy Ramsay of Stereolab, who also produced and even programmed his non synced drum machines adding a lot of inspiration to the album. ‘Scared Dreams’ invites you into the bands own dimensional soundscape, a world built with transcendental guitars, driving grooves and otherworldly, enchanting vocals, altogether seeped in layers of blissfully produced synths.

Opener and lead single ‘Feel The Sun’ encapsulates this new direction perfectly before the anthemic ‘I Can Feel It’ makes the bands intentions known. Elsewhere playful 80s electronics sit alongside a shoegaze sensibility effortlessly and amongst the textured flow of the LP emerge pop hooks like the infectiously bluesy ‘Baby Come On’.

Josefin tells us “This album comes out of a period of heartbreak, loss and dissolution, but also of deep love, warmth and beauty unveiled in the middle of it. A sacred dream, the way we see it, is not necessarily a golden fluffy cloud river, but instead also contains all the shadows that need to be seen and felt in order to drop what has to go in order to truly live. And the dissonance of such a dream may not be immediately apparent, let alone the meaning of it. In a way all of these tracks seem to emanate from that place where we have almost reached a new shore, or maybe we missed it and are headed somewhere else entirely, but there’s no way of telling until afterwards.”

Part of the Young Echo crew, Ossia embodies the best tradition of Bristol underground music in that he doesn’t pay much mind to tradition, just does his own thing. Yes, Devil’s Dance shares DNA with those sullen masterpieces we will always associate with the city, from blunted 90s street-soul/hip-hop to sub-loaded dubstep – but like his forebears Ossia is ultimately a mongrel breed, drawing from his own, very contemporary and idiosyncratic well of influences: grime, jazz, steppers, dub, post-punk and industrial abrasion, concrète minimalism…

Devil’s Dance could easily be not just a forbidding, but a suffocating proposition. But even at its most angst-ridden it feels lithe and aerodynamic, its darker impulses both intensified, and offset, by a pure soundboy’s delight in detail and colour and higher dancefloor mechanics. The music pulses with energy, a fever to communicate…and Raki Singh (violin), Jasmine (vocals) and Ollie Moore (saxophone) add vivid flesh-tone to the punishing, plasmic electronics.

The record was mixed at an infamous, subterranean Bristolian recording studio, using an arsenal of spring and plate reverbs, modded pedals, tape-delays and compressors: systems of black magic crucial to the album’s intense presence and physicality and carefully modulated dread.

In the end what we are witnessing, and experiencing vicariously, is a purging, an exorcism: find the devil, dance with the devil… and then chase, chase, chase him out of the earth.

From the swamping lands of Finland death/grind trio Galvanizer emerges with their debut album “Sanguine Vigil” after having paid all their dues with several tapes and a 7″ EP like we were used back in the 90s.

Galvanizer have quickly become one of the most promising underground acts around, their old school approach perfectly combines with their youthful energy and their sound will perfectly please both fans of old school Finnish death metal and modern deathgrind sounds.

The artwork is painted by mighty TG Rantanen, a finnish institution famous for his works with Demilich, Demigod, Adramelech, Depravity and many more.